How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
@joseph31 Agreed, and I'd add:
Transitioning from industrial automation into humanoid-specific roles is a increasingly common and viable path, since a lot of the underlying skills (motion control, safety systems, real-time software) transfer directly, even though the specific dynamics and learned-control components are new.
Reminds me a bit of the early drone hobbyist scene, honestly.
"The best actuator is the one that doesn't overheat."
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mohammed.rossi
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2025 9:46 pm
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
@rossi30 This is a great summary, thanks.
Robotics engineers in the US were reportedly seeing $150k-$205k total comp at mid-level and $205k-$300k at senior level in 2026, with humanoid- and foundation-model-specialist roles clearing $280k-$475k - a meaningful premium over general robotics/automation roles.
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
Can I ask a dumb follow-up -
A whole-body control engineer's day-to-day work is a mix of formulating and tuning constrained optimization problems, debugging why a controller behaves differently on hardware than in simulation, and a surprising amount of time spent on numerical stability and solver performance rather than pure algorithm design.
she/her | grad student, biped locomotion
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
@george92 I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly.
Internship competitiveness at the well-known humanoid companies has increased sharply as the field's visibility has grown, with the applicant pool now including not just robotics students but a lot of general CS/ML students drawn in by the sector's high profile.
"The best actuator is the one that doesn't overheat."
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sarah.santos3
- Posts: 213
- Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2025 5:30 am
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
@rossi30 Just to be precise about one thing:
Robotics engineers in the US were reportedly seeing $150k-$205k total comp at mid-level and $205k-$300k at senior level in 2026, with humanoid- and foundation-model-specialist roles clearing $280k-$475k - a meaningful premium over general robotics/automation roles. In the UK, base salaries for robotics roles reportedly range from around £50,000 for new graduates up to roughly £200,000 for senior whole-body-control or reinforcement-learning specialists - a notably wide band reflecting how specialized the top end of the field has become.
they/them
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
@sarah.santos3 I'd frame this differently.
Robotics engineers in the US were reportedly seeing $150k-$205k total comp at mid-level and $205k-$300k at senior level in 2026, with humanoid- and foundation-model-specialist roles clearing $280k-$475k - a meaningful premium over general robotics/automation roles.
they/them
Re: How do you decide between a bigger scope at a smaller company vs a narrower scope at a bigger one?
Pretty much this. One thing to add:
How much ML background a controls role actually requires varies a lot by company and team - some whole-body control positions remain heavily classical-optimization-focused, while others increasingly expect familiarity with reinforcement learning or imitation learning even for what used to be a purely classical-controls job.